Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Celebrating 25yrs of CULTURE (Iain M. Banks)

BanksIM-Culture25th-Boxset

Today, Orbit Books (and Civilian Reader and many others) are celebrating 25 years of Iain M. Banks’s Culture series! The series started with CONSIDER PHLEBAS in 1987, and continues this year with THE HYDROGEN SONATA, the New York Times bestseller that Orbit published last month.

BanksIM-Culture25thTo help others celebrate this milestone, I am happy to offer a copy of the Culture boxed set, which is also out this month, to one lucky Civilian Reader… uh, reader.

The boxset includes CONSIDER PHLEBAS, PLAYER OF GAMES, and USE OF WEAPONS

To be in with a chance to get your mitts on this boxset, all you have to do is leave a comment, below (please include a way of getting in touch – a Twitter handle or anti-spam email), or emailing me at…

civilian.reader[at]hotmail.co.uk

I’ll pick the winner (using some form of random-number generator or I’ll find some dice from somewhere) on Monday, December 3rd.

BanksIM-HydrogenSonata-USIn the meantime, check out the synopsis for The Hydrogen Sonata:

The Scavenger species are circling. It is, truly, the End Days for the Gzilt civilization.

An ancient people, organized on military principles and yet almost perversely peaceful, the Gzilt helped set up the Culture ten thousand years earlier and were very nearly one of its founding societies, deciding not to join only at the last moment. Now they’ve made the collective decision to follow the well-trodden path of millions of other civilizations; they are going to Sublime, elevating themselves to a new and almost infinitely more rich and complex existence.

Amid preparations though, the Regimental High Command is destroyed. Lieutenant Commander (reserve) Vyr Cossont appears to have been involved, and she is now wanted — dead, not alive. Aided only by an ancient, reconditioned android and a suspicious Culture avatar, Cossont must complete her last mission given to her by the High Command. She must find the oldest person in the Culture, a man over nine thousand years old, who might have some idea what really happened all that time ago. It seems that the final days of the Gzilt civilization are likely to prove its most perilous.

This giveaway is open to all.

16 comments:

  1. Cool, a worldwide giveaway. I must admit I haven't read any of Ian M. Banks's work yet and definitely need to catch up.

    @PaperlessRead

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  2. Oh man! Awesomecross! Hit me up @TinyPterosaur

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  3. Finally a competition for those of us not in the UK or US. Count me in!

    @Crusaderofchaos

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  4. Wowzers! Its like early chirstmas and I havent even won! Twitter: @warwizard

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  5. I shamefully admit that I didn't read any book by Ian M. Banks yet. I plan to give Culture a try for ages but I never did buy the book... This boxed set is just the thing to push it up my tbr. :)

    Twitter: @BookwormDreams

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  6. This sound very cool. I would certainly like to try this series.

    Best, and keep on blogging.

    Twitter @gypsylib

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  7. Count me in, please.

    Twitter: @BrotherVinny

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  8. Always wanted to read this!

    Twitter: @dhilonv

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  9. Update: There are now 25 total entries (email & comments)! Thanks everyone for entering. Still plenty of time for others to apply, if they wish to.

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  10. Wow, this is awesome! I've never read any Culture books but I hear only good things about them. And the boxed set looks super pretty.
    Maybe I'll get lucky here (I never win at givaways). :)

    E-Mail: sffbookreview[at]gmail.com

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  11. This is awesome. I can't resist. Count me in. @arrhyth_mia

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  12. Awesome competition, I'm in. aaron.peter.williams@gmail.com

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  13. Wow, awesome. I'm in also :)
    vinsarama[at]gmail[dot]com

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  14. And the winner is...

    FLOREAN from Alsace.
    [Email has been sent.]

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